The Unbreakables
by HatakeKaede-san
Summary: There aren't many cases that can get through to our usually emotionally detached detective. But this particular case hits a bit too close to home for everyone involved.
1. Chapter 1

Summary: There aren't many cases that can get through to our usually emotionally detached detective. But this particular case hits a bit too close to home for everyone involved. Takes place after His Last Vow and after the Moriarty thing has been resolved.

Warnings: References to sexual abuse/violence against children and dead children.

Disclaimer: I don't own Sherlock.

**The Unbreakables**

After successfully avoiding most of Mrs. Hudson's fussing, to the elderly ladies' dismay, John ran up the stairs to 221B in a hurry. He could hear the sound of the violin coming from the room as well as the sound of a man's voice. Mycroft, he realised. From the sound of it there was nothing unusual about the situation at hand. Mycroft pressing on the younger Holmes brother while the latter completely ignored the other's presence. Or perhaps there was something different this time.

"Sherlock…," Mycroft started and John was surprised to note that there was a certain softness to his voice where he usually chose a much harsher and more condescending tone with his younger brother.

As John walked into the room, the sound of the violin stopped abruptly. There he found Sherlock standing uncomfortably close to Mycroft and there was an unusual shadow of genuine rage across his best friend's face.

"Get. Out. NOW," Sherlock hissed to Mycroft.

The elder Holmes sighed, nodded his head to John in greeting and left as if his younger brother had not just kicked him out of his flat. Sure, the two Holmes brothers were drama queens and often played up to it during their mutual conversations but this was different. This time around Sherlock wasn't being overly dramatic just for the sake of annoying his brother; whatever it was that Mycroft had told him seemed to genuinely upset him. John had only ever seen Sherlock react this aggressively to Mycroft on one occasion, when he was under the influence of drugs.

Sherlock returned to his violin, playing a few soothing noises. It was a melody John had never heard before, so he assumed that Sherlock had been composing. There was a certain kind of sad quality to the music and John took in his friend's appearance. Sherlock who had already dressed up into one of his trademark suits despite the early hours of the morning seemed unusually dishevelled and his potsure seemed to be incredibly tense.

"You alright, mate?" John finally asked.

Sherlock stopped playing for a while and looked up at John. John fiddled with his hands uncomfortably as he felt Sherlock scanning him from head to toes, cataloguing every bit of new information. By now he had probably figured out what John had had for breakfast, the fact that he had lost two pounds in the last few weeks and that he had had a rather heated argument with Mary this morning. Nothing serious, just John being overprotective and too worrying. At least that's what it was according to Mary.

"A tough case?" John asked a different question since he was unlikely to get an answer for the first one. He noticed the plate with the food on table that Mrs. Hudson must have had left at least several hours if not days ago by the state of it and which didn't even seem to be played with yet alone eaten. John had learned to identify what that meant in his time spent living with Sherlock. When Sherlock wasn't on a case he'd at least play with his food out of boredom even if quite often he would fail at eating much of it. Completely untouched food meant a case and combined with the dark lines under Sherlock's eyes that implied sleep deprivation it was probably a tough one.

Sherlock ignored John's question once again, instead opting for posing one of his own: "So how is Mrs. Watson today?"

"She's good," John answered trying to ignore the way Sherlock's eyes pierced into his, telling him that he knew very well what went on in the Watson's household today. Jesus, and Mary thought that John was the overprotective one. John had nothing on Sherlock when it came to ensuring the harmony of the Watson's marriage and their safety. John thought it better not to look into the implications that this fact meant for his relationship either with Mary or Sherlock. He could tell that Sherlock was trying to change the topic and to distract John from dwelling on the subject of his case too much. The thing John couldn't understand was why. Sherlock rarely could stop himself from sharing his thoughts on a case with John and he had requested that John come help on this one after all.

"Sherlock, what's going on?" there was a hint of annoyance in John's voice. If all Sherlock had brought him here for was to talk about John and Mary's marriage, which to be fair would not have been the most ridiculous reason for which Sherlock had ever called him to come, he would have preferred to go to work instead.

„Any moment now," Sherlock said watching his phone intently. The first tone of the ringing didn't even finish before he answered it.

„How old?" Sherlock asked before the party at the other hand of the conversation, Lestrade John assumed, had a chance to speak.

John would swear that he could see Sherlock's face turn into an expression of disgust but before he could address this, Sherlock's usual mask was back in place. However the glee that usually seemed to accompany the news of yet another corpse found seemed to be missing this time around.

"We'll be there in 15 minutes, make sure the morons don't compromise the crime scene, Gordon."

John rolled his eyes as he muttered „it's Greg" under his breath, he knew that it was pointless to remind Sherlock of this fact. A part of him almost believed that his best friend knew the first name of the DI very well but he just secretly enjoyed trolling Lestrade. Sherlock didn't even give Greg the chance to protest against Sherlock's most recent invention of his first name before ending the call.

„Let's go, John."

„Go where exactly?" John asked once they were on the street.

„You'll see. The game is on, " Sherlock half smiled as he waved for a taxi. John wasn't probably the most observant person out there, at least according to Sherlock's standards and considering that he had married a former assassin without ever noticing, this assertion probably wasn't that far from the truth. However one thing he could always tell that he had learned thanks to the prolonged exposure to the detective was when Sherlock was faking emotions. And that smile certainly was a fake one. For some reason, this particular mystery didn't seem to wake the kind of thrill for the chase in Sherlock as most others did. The first plausible explanation that occurred to John was that the case was simply too boring. But if that were the reason, Sherlock would have either abandoned Scotland Yard to their own means or solved the case in minutes in order to boast about it and to ridicule the Scotland Yarders. It was all very curious as John put two and two together and realised that Mycroft had likely insisted on Sherlock dropping this case during his little visit. Was it something like Magnussen once again, a case where Sherlock was punching above his own weight? But surely if Sherlock was still working on the case out of malice to his brother, he would definitely show much more glee at this fact. No, it seemed to be a completely different force that was driving Sherlock into this particular case. This seemed to be something that was much more personal and hit too close to home for his usually emotionally detached friend. John gulped as he wondered what it possibly could be that could have such an effect on Sherlock Holmes. He was bound to find out very soon and he was quite sure that he wouldn't like the revelations and implications of this case one bit.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Sherlock.

**A/N: **Thank you for reading/reviewing/favouriting/alerting.

**Chapter II**

When they arrived at the crime scene, which was situated at a boy's public school, nowhere, middle of, John nodded his head in greeting to Donovan and stopped to chat for a bit with Lestrade. Sherlock of course didn't bother with such petty things and proceeded directly to the murder scene. When John joined him a few minutes later, he was glad for his short interaction with the DI as he had time to brace himself for what he was about to see. Child victims were always especially hard to bear, but with the prospect of parenthood looming over him John found himself caring even more. Sherlock meanwhile was scanning the body of the young boy looking for every detail, every little bit of information, seemingly unfazed by the nature of the victim and the degree of brutality that it presented to most people.

John kneeled down next to the body, examining it for causes of death and other injuries: „Case of death, probably asphyxiation...there's some recent bruising on the left hand...also some older bruising on other parts of the body...," John's eyes met with Sherlock's for an instant and he could almost see the wheels start turning and racing in his best friend's mind. Without a word Sherlock turned on his feet and walked away as there was nothing more to learn for them from the crime scene after all, so John hurried after him. Once he caught up to him, he noticed that the detective was dialling a number on his phone, which was highly unusual for his eccentric friend who as he put it himself once usually preferred to text. John wondered what matter it could be that was so important that required him to indulge in a conversation where words were actually exchanged out loud and even more so he wondered who the person at the receiving end was.

"Molly," Sherlock addressed her, his voice void of emotion. "There's been another one. Let me know as soon as you find out whether there's any evidence of sexual assault."

As comprehension dawned on John, he didn't even ponder the fact that Sherlock actually ended a conversation with a 'thank you'.

„Jesus, Sherlock," he stuttered finally.

"Go home, John. I need to think, you're being extremely emotional, I hope I don't need to remind you how annoying that is." Sherlock addressed him, in his more usually rude tone.

John conceded to Sherlock and told the taxi driver to drop him at the hospital instead, he would currently be of no use to Sherlock and in a way he was secretly pleased with this turn of events as it would offer an opportunity to drown himself in work a bit and get the image of the dead body of the poor little boy out of his head.

* * *

As Mary walked into the flat of 221B Baker Street she was greeted with the usual sight of chaos that the space occupied by Sherlock usually presented, enhanced even more by the fact that he was currently solving a case. She sighed as she manoeuvred her way through the mess to find Sherlock. It was her turn for baby-sitting duties as John found himself stormed by patients when Sherlock's call came. She wondered how they would cope with all of this once the baby came into the world and required constant presence of a baby-sitter as well, but decided to rather concentrate on the matter at hand.

She found Sherlock in the living room looking at a series of photographs and info sheets regarding his case plastered all over the wall. He turned as he heard her approaching.

"Three pounds, " he commented.

"We've talked about this, Sherlock," she rolled her eyes.

As ever Sherlock ignored her.

"John's busy at the hospital," she started.

"No, he's not. He's clearly trying to avoid this case because it makes him feel uncomfortable and he has found a convenient excuse not to be here. What I don't understand is," he sat down on the couch putting his feet on the table and crossing his arms: „why would he send you?"

Mary was silent.

„He didn't send you," the detective half stated, half asked.

„Brilliant deduction," she answered dryly.

"So Mary, clever Mary, since you came here you might as well tell me."

"Tell you what?"

"There's something I'm missing. Something terribly obvious. Five boys between the age of 7 and 12 brutally assaulted and asphyxiated, different racial background, different social background, different schools, there's absolutely no connection. Or is there? Of course there is, there always is. So what am I missing, Mary?"

Mary ignored the condescending tone; this was the kind of game that he could maybe pull with John but not with her.

"Well, I'd say the answer to that is fairly obvious. Sleep is what you're missing judging by the state of you."

Sherlock rolled his eyes: "Nonsense. I don't need sleep, sleep slows me down," he said as he got up and tried to step through the table as he sometimes did, not finding the right balance and ending up colliding with the floor in a rather noisy fashion.

"Yeah, the great detective doesn't need sleep, I can see that now, " she commented as she helped him up.

* * *

"Nothing serious, but this will probably leave a pretty nasty bruise for a few days, might want to lay off the violin for a few days," she commented as she pointed to his left wrist during her inspection for injuries.

Sherlock looked at his wrist briefly and something seemed to click as she recognised the far away look in his eyes, he was lost in his mind palace as he finally connected the dots.

"I've been so stupid. Oh, it was in front of my eyes all this time, " he finally commented. "I have to tell Lestrade...," he slurred the words as he tried to get up but couldn't even find the right balance to stand on two feet.

"How long has it been since you actually slept?"

She could barely make out his answer but it sounded like don't know, can't remember or something along those lines.

"You should lie down, just for a bit," she commanded him. "Then I will personally drive you to Lestrade, okay?"

It seemed as if Sherlock was about to protest but there was no power left in him as his eyes slowly closed.

As she could hear her friend's silent snoring, she ventured to the kitchen as in not to disturb him. She thought about maybe fixing herself a cuppa but reconsidered this possibility when she found some experiment or another in the cabinet where she knew Sherlock usually kept his tea. Curiosity got the better of her as she opened the fridge. She had heard the tales about heads in the fridge too many times without actually seeing something. Disappointingly the fridge seemed to be only filled with a scarce amount of things that could mostly pass for food, albeit a considerate chunk of it probably had seen its best days some days if not weeks ago. Oh, well, maybe there might be some eyes in the microwave. She could swear she heard some mumbling coming from the living room, she never figured Sherlock would be one to talk in his sleep. Although considering how much he seemed to enjoy talking in certain situations, it wasn't all that surprising. Only when she heard a muffled cry did it dawn on her that Sherlock Holmes was most likely experiencing a nightmare. The demons that he could manage to hold at bay while awake, caught up with him while asleep.


End file.
